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Franklin County backs TMH/Alliant deal

David Adlerstein, Apalachicola Times
Published 2:59 p.m. ET May 7, 2020

Franklin County is moving forward with keeping its small, full-service acute care hospital in Apalachicola, after commissioners last week voted unanimously to pursue a management contract for Weems Memorial Hospital with a health care consulting firm working in collaboration with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital.

The decision to pursue talks with Louisville, Kentucky-based Alliant Rural Hospital Solutions follows on the heels of a decision to abandon, for the time being, any plans to secure a low-interest, roughly $10-million U.S. Department of Agriculture loan to build a new facility.

County Coordinator Michael Morón said he had no choice but to ask the USDA to de-obligate the loan funds pending for construction of either an expansion of the existing Weems hospital in Apalachicola, or the creation of a freestanding emergency room, as envisioned in a rival proposal presented by Ascension Sacred Heart.

“Once COVID-19 set in, I called the USDA back and said there’s no way we can meet the June deadline for funds,” Morón said. “There are no funds available to build any facility at this moment. If and when we decide what we’re doing, we would then need to reapply for a loan.”

After hearing some opposition from the public, and discussing the matter among themselves, the commissioners voted to have Morón and interim Weems CEO David Walker open talks with Alliant.

“The question before our board was to make a determination of what health care model we wanted, of where we wanted to go with health care,” Creamer told the commissioners. “Sacred Heart presented a freestanding emergency room only. The one from Alliant maintains a hospital.

He said the TMH/Alliant deal would allow the county to continue operating its ambulance service through Weems.

“With Sacred Heart you would have to develop another entity to manage the EMS department,” Creamer said.

Terms of the agreement proposed by Alliant called for a five-year deal that would cost the county about $28,100 per month in the first year of the contract, and then increase to $28,500 monthly in year 2, about $30,000 in year 3, $30,400 per month in year 4 and $31,400 in year 5. The salary and benefits for the Weems CEO, who earns $120,000 per year, about 25% less than his predecessor, would be included in this monthly fee.

Creamer said Alliant would be generating revenue for the hospital that he believed would “more than offset any cost that we incur.”

While the vote was unanimous, Commissioner Ricky Jones said he was concerned about the timing during looming budget difficulties, that could include hiring freezes.

Commissioner Bert Boldt said the need for hospital beds during this COVID-19 crisis influenced his decision.

“We have retained Texas A&M who came in here with three eminent health care professionals and they gave us perspective about the importance (of keeping a local hospital),” he said. “What we have here is an infrastructure of peace of mind.”

Commissioner Smokey Parrish said sustainability is the key.

“To me it is to take a step necessary to make the hospital sustainable,” he said. “If we can’t do that, how can we be building a new hospital?

“They bring in physicians to help raise revenues,” he said. “If you’re not sustainable, you’re going down a dark hole. Am I willing to spend some money? Yes. But if it can’t work we have a whole other issue we have to deal with."

Commissioner William Massey said, “You need the expertise of these two leading organizations. I think this is a good opportunity so we can really advance.”